Five tried in alleged gang rape of worker

Five men were tried at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday over the alleged gang rape of a female garment worker in December 2013.

The five are Long Ravuth, Ya Sokhom, Phann Chanthoeun, Sor Thun and Chhorn Channith, all garment workers between the ages of 24 and 25.

Chhannith escaped arrest and was tried in absentia.

According to presiding judge Nou Veasna, the men lured the victim to a nightclub and then invited her to a snack shop on the outskirts of the capital in Por Sen Chey district.

“During their drinking, they forced her to drink beers until she got drunk, and when she got drunk, they then carried her on their motorbike, and brought her to some brush in the village and started forcibly raping her” at around midnight on December 10, Veasna said.

The victim in the case said a total of seven people raped her, but the other two were not arrested as she was unable to identify them.

“They held me down – they held my legs and my hands as they undressed me and started raping me one by one, a total of seven people,” she said.

Afterwards, the men dropped her off back at the snack shop, and she filed a complaint with police the next day.

The woman is demanding $2,000 in compensation.

The four men in the courtroom all admitted to having sex with the woman, but said it was consensual.

A verdict in the case is due to be handed down on December 2 of this year.

A UN report released in September 2013 suggested that some 20 per cent of Cambodian men have committed rape.

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